


Hallowed Be

by ofvanity



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Afghanistan, Animal Abuse, Arson, Canonical Character Death, Father-Son Relationship, Gore, Hallucinations, M/M, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, Post Reichenbach, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:20:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofvanity/pseuds/ofvanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot of people don’t realize this city belongs to the dead. Sebastian walks down abandoned side streets at two in the morning and counts all the notches, of all the dead. London is a graveyard, full of bones and scars and people in varying stages of grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hallowed Be

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on the idea that since Moriarty and Sherlock are the inverses of each other, so are John and Sebastian. Thus, if John is a good man with bad days, Sebastian is a bad man with good days. Translated into [Chinese by the lovely Eki](http://eki-wo.livejournal.com/885.html).

Sebastian Moran was born under a chestnut tree. Sebastian was born, screaming louder than gunfire and holding his guts in with his knuckles, while the world was ripping open in hot flashes of red and the chestnut tree loomed above him, branches knotted and grotesque and perfect.  
  
His mother used to read him scripture about perfection—about dimensional planes and robed saviors but this isn’t the same. The tree above him is bare and its name is not of heaven. Nothing can hide in Afghanistan and the tree cast an earthly shadow. Bleeding and screaming—Sebastian is born under the chestnut tree, crushed by the power of a bullet and begging for mercy under an empty sky.  
  
-  
  
God died.  
  
Jim’s death was pretty inevitable.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian was raised in a small flat in Sussex. His mother had three jobs and tucked him into bed every other night with a kiss. His brother took care of him when his mother was away but never tucked him in, never kissed his forehead. Sebastian never knew his father but his mother always said the Lord loved him and that was supposed to be enough.  
  
The problem with his mother was that she lied to Sebastian. She tucked him into bed with kisses and sweet dreams and pressed her calloused palms together in prayer. She combed her fingers through his hair and chanted myths, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”  
  
She was a fucking liar because Sebastian aged into his cigarette burn scars and God never saved Matthew and God never loved him. Sebastian was keeping his intestines together by the palms of his hands in the desert and God would have let him die. The bullet ripped through his skin and burrowed inside his body, carved its way through easy as you please.  
  
Sebastian was dying and his vision burned purple black with hallucinations and none of them were God. He woke up in a hospital in Greece and God wasn't there, either.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian meets John Watson in a dream, steady-handed Dr. Watson, silent in his ride to the pool where Carl Powers died, a black bag over his head. Sebastian had it washed for the occasion.  
  
-  
  
But he actually meets Dr. Watson in a white room. The day after Jim dies, Sebastian books a flight to India and leaves. India bleeds into him with age and sweat, wrapping his arms in mosquito netting. The organ harvesters in Dubai are well, Candlestick just had a baby. “That’s nice,” Sebastian says and shuffles the poker deck. “What’d you name it?”  
  
Candlestick laughs, rotted teeth the color of candle wax yellow, “Moriarty.”  
  
It’s a joke, the table of organ harvesters all laugh at the horrified look on Sebastian’s face and he heaves fake laughter in return. They toast and drink and order prostitutes. Night time blurs into day time and Sebastian takes the train up to Russia with a group of smugglers.  
  
Their moustaches are as thick and heavy as ever and Gregor leans forward to say, “Do not worry, Mister Moran. We were here before Moriarty, we will be here after.”  
  
The message of Moriarty’s death ripples across Europe and Sebastian laughs in return.  
  
-  
  
Months later, Sebastian lands in London and immediately takes a cab to John’s clinic. If Jim knew what Sebastian was doing, he’d love it. He’d laugh and laugh and get inappropriately handsy.  But Jim is dead now, he chose to die, so he can go fuck himself. Sebastian isn’t here for a laugh, he’s here because it burns when he pees and after trekking through Russia by way of Natasha Trade girls, there’s no telling what he’s contracted.  
  
He slips off his clothes and into a paper gown and watches with rapt attention as John the Doctor draws his blood. John the Doctor has dark circles under his eyes and bitten nails. John the Doctor talks with the kind of lisp you get from biting your lip too often and Sebastian watches himself bleed into the doctor’s hands.  
  
“Well, Mr. Moran, these shouldn’t take long, if you’d like to wait. Or I can call you at the end of the day with your results.”  
  
“Would you call me personally?” Sebastian asks and the doctor’s eyes flick up.  
  
“If you so wish,” he replies.  
  
“Yes, I’d much prefer that.”  
  
-  
  
Sebastian goes home after to an empty flat just blocks away from 221B Baker Street and he takes the doctor’s call in the bath. He breathes very slowly and doesn’t think about anything, mind carefully blank. “Mr. Moran,” he says, “your test results returned positive for Chlamydia.”  
  
Sebastian nearly kills himself stumbling out of the bath.  
  
-  
  
Night drops back down Sebastian’s throat with a hot drizzle. The Thames opens up and crawls back, the crush of pressure draws his blood quicker, draws his body forward, but there isn’t enough room in this city for a battlefield. There isn’t enough room in Sebastian’s head, in his mouth for the stuttered violence and he can’t breathe, much less speak of it. It breaks through his jaw and instead of screaming, instead of bursting open or dying in a soundless fall, Sebastian pulls a trigger.  
  
-  
  
John Watson does the shopping for himself these days. He presses his foreign fingers to his mouth and doesn’t show any weakness. Sebastian wouldn’t feel weak either — not with a Saturday Night Special in his waistband.  
  
In the produce, Sebastian bumps into him and for once, it’s an absolute coincidence. They exchange awkward pleasantries (“How’s your—” “Fine.”) and Sebastian tries to breathe, doesn’t blush, and leaves.  
  
He forgoes all his shopping and refuses to eat for a week.  
  
-  
  
For a long time after Jim dies, the world doesn’t touch Sebastian. He treads through Russia and India and parts of eastern Europe until it starts burning when he pees. In London, he smokes in the dilapidated parts of the city, searching for a day laborer, passing identical street lamps for miles.  
  
“A contractor in Ostrava asked for you personally,” Sebastian says when he finds him. “You’ll fly on a private plane there and come back the same way. He’ll have a place for you to stay, he’ll provide for your meals and anything you may want. He promises to keep your name completely out of it, he just wants the legend.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“A child, in no way related to anyone important. It’s a quick job, three days tops. Frankly, I’d take the damn job myself if he hadn’t asked for you specifically.”  
  
“Ostrava?”  
  
“It’s beautiful this time of year.”  
  
-  
  
His new doctor is a specialist. There isn’t a single attractive thing about him, he does some tests and asks Sebastian to come back in two days. He laughs when Sebastian asks if he can still have sex, but doesn’t answer the question.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian’s mother was named Margaret, she was raised in Galway and moved to Sussex when she became pregnant with Sebastian’s older brother, Matthew. Sebastian’s father moved away a month after learning Margaret was pregnant with Sebastian. Matthew took care of Sebastian while their mother was at work but he lived inside his own head.  
  
Sebastian is twelve when his brother almost drowns and Sebastian can’t swim but he jumps in to save him. Matthew thrashes in his arms but they both make it to land. Their mother is rapturous, wailing to the heavens and thanking God for saving her boys. Matthew prays through his tears and when he’s older, decides to become a priest.  
  
Sebastian, believing God saved them, enlists in the army.  
  
-  
  
The second time Sebastian runs into John the Doctor, it’s in the historical nonfiction section at the library. Sebastian isn’t sure if this is an accident or not, he’s been losing time lately, and is almost surprised when he sees John the Doctor. “Doctor,” he says by way of greeting.  
  
John is sharp — Sebastian always knew that — and snaps to attention when he hears him. Their eyes meet and Sebastian sees ice until John the Doctor smiles at him. “Mr. Moran.”  
  
“Oh, please,” he says, shaking his hand, “Call me Sebastian. I’m not even a patient anymore.”  
  
“Alright then, Sebastian, if we’re just two blokes in a library, I insist you call me John.”  
  
“John.”  
  
-  
  
Sebastian spends most days wandering. Sometimes it means taking the train out to the edge of the city and finding his way back by foot. Sometimes it means taking the motorbike he keeps locked up in a storage unit and driving until he runs out of gas. On days after a job, wandering means lying flat on the floor his bedroom, shoulder blades pushed against the hardwood.  
  
The ceiling is white, speckled with age, and Sebastian feels the carnage inside him open to the mouth of the sky. Sebastian can see every single one of their faces, twisted up in hate or fury or quietly placid after a bullet blurs their vision. He presses his body into the floor and counts his pathetic breaths. At night, he dreams of butterfly wings and severed fingers, the mouth of sky inching shut around him.  
  
Sebastian dug his heels into the Afghani desert and he hasn’t been able to dig them out since he got back. Jim knew, of course. Jim laughed. Jim whispered kisses on his earlobes and said, “Afghanistan was a lovely ol’ time, right, Tiny?”  
  
Sebastian would push him away and keep it together. He didn’t need Jim to tell him what happened. Sebastian knows, Sebastian was there. Sebastian led fucking arms. Afghanistan wasn’t a battlefield, it was a fucking massacre.  
  
-  
  
In Ostrava, after Jim died, Sebastian wandered down his own body, stinging cigarette butts into the very corners of his nerve endings. The Czech Republic always looks grim when Sebastian goes there and the last time he’d been, he’d gotten drunk with liquors he couldn’t pronounce and fucked a blond girl that was comped by a client. Before her, it was a redhead, two blondes, and series of brunettes and honey-skinned runaways sprinkled in between. None of them had names.  
  
Sebastian’s doctor, the specialist with a perpetually down turned mouth says, “You should compose a list of your most recent sexual partners.”  
  
Sebastian considers calling Candlestick, considers calling Gregor, and Stefan, anyone who comped girls for him, anyone who saw him to tell them he’s been infected. He hasn’t seen anyone but John the Doctor since he got back — no one that can see him in return, at least. “I will.”  
  
He doesn’t call Gregor or Stefan but he sends Candlestick’s wife a fruit basket.  
  
-  
  
“What are you doing here today, Sebastian?”  
  
Sebastian rolls his shoulders and pushes himself back onto the couch, “I was bored and you make me laugh.”  
  
His therapist — first name Katrina, married to an accountant, honest to god has 2.5 kids and belongs to a health club — flinches. Then she says, “I make you laugh? What’s so funny?”  
  
Sebastian rolls his eyes.  
  
-  
  
A lot of people don’t realize this city belongs to the dead. Sebastian walks down abandoned side streets at two in the morning and counts all the notches, of all the dead. London is a graveyard, full of bones and scars and people in varying stages of grief.  
  
Sebastian’s first thought after learning of Jim’s death was _I need a haircut_.  
  
-  
  
John the Doctor is waiting at a bus stop in the rain the next time Sebastian sees him. He’s got a coat but it’s soaked through and his collar flops wetly against his neck. His hair is darker, an almost brown color, locks sticking messily in all directions. He’s shivering, too, hands stuck stubbornly in his pockets with his shoulders squared against the onslaught of rain. He’s not carrying a gun.  
  
“John,” Sebastian calls to stand next to him, and somehow John the Doctor hears him over the blare of traffic. Sebastian huddles with him under the umbrella.  
  
“Sebastian, it’s good to see you. How are you?” John greets happily clapping Sebastian on the shoulder.  
  
“I’m well, how are you?”  
  
John smiles at him, “A bit under the weather, actually.”  
  
Sebastian chuckles and he can feel the rain blooming in his lungs. “I got here just in time, then?”  
  
“Yes and thank you for it, but you don’t have to stay while I wait. I can handle a bit of rain.”  
  
“No, it’s alright, I wasn’t headed anywhere in particular, and I’d feel terrible about leaving you out here like this.” Sebastian can feel water trickling just down his back where the umbrella ends but it doesn’t bother him.  
  
“Well, I appreciate it nonetheless and I insist on buying you a drink in return.”  
  
Sebastian shrugs, “Never opposed to a free drink.”  
  
“Good man!” John the Doctor exclaims, “Tomorrow night?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“D’you know the old pub near Baker Street?”  
  
Sebastian grins, knowing the bar John will suggest. “Willows?”  
  
“It’s a bit rough, if that’s not your type,” John begins amending.  
  
Sebastian waves him dismissively, “Not at all, it’s a pub; its primary function is for me to get drunk in and act like a scumbag.”  
  
John laughs, “You’re one of those?”  
  
“I have my stories,” Sebastian shrugs.  
  
“That,” John says, glancing at something behind Sebastian’s shoulder where the bus is slowly ambling forward, “Sounds like a challenge. We’ll have to make some stories of our own.”  
  
“Second round is on me,” Sebastian says as the bus stops in front of them.  
  
“Eight o’clock?”  
  
“Uh,” Sebastian hesitates, “How about half past?”  
  
John smiles, a perfect wide and knowing grin, affirms, “It’s a date,” then ducks out of the umbrella and onto the bus.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian was born under a chestnut tree, bleeding from the very bottom of his stomach. The immaculate branches above him knotted their black back into him and he saw the devil. Black eyes bruised purple flicked down at him, and Jim’s pretty little mouth opened in a furious smile.  
  
“Hello, Sebastian.”  
  
Sebastian’s vision blurs with the mouth of the sky swelling around him. Sheer-eyed Jim smiles and kneels down to prod at Sebastian’s gut. “That looks nasty. You alright?”  
  
It feels like there’s a hole in Sebastian’s stomach, and the inside is cold and hollow. Sebastian can only see red, can only see purple, the world closing for a moment and Jim slaps him, “No, no, no, don’t do that, we’re not done, Sebastian, I’m here to save you.”  
  
His mouth tastes like lead, full of sticky liquid, slick and strong like petrol. “God?”  
  
“No,” Jim laughs, and suddenly it’s gentle, calm, “I’m not God, Sebastian. I’m just a man. I do want to save you, though, will you let me save you?”  
  
Sebastian can feel his hands, slick with petrol, holding everything in but it’s all slipping through his fingers, “Please, God, help me.”  
  
“My name is Jim,” he coos and pets Sebastian’s cheek. “God isn’t here, Sebastian, God isn’t going to save you. But I will.”  
  
There are people screaming behind him, medics nowhere in sight and Sebastian can feel the devastating crawl of his own dying breath inside his lungs. Time is slipping into black and the world is shutting on Jim’s purple black eyes.  
  
“Please.”  
  
-  
  
Oscar returns from the Czech Republic and Sebastian meets him at the private hangar. He isn’t wearing a jacket and not for the first time, Sebastian is struck by the sheer immensity of the man. “What are you doing here?”  
  
Sebastian rolls his eyes and opens the door to the stretch limousine, “Making sure your business trip was successful and you were treated like a professional.”  
  
Oscar stares at him for a moment and says, “You need more friends, Sebastian.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Moriarty died. Get a new one.”  
  
Sebastian almost laughs. “Get in the car.”  
  
-  
  
Sebastian has picked up pieces of John Watson throughout the beginning. He’s a doctor with a sister, aged parents in the country, a therapist, and a chip in his bottom left canine from a fist fight. Sebastian knew most of these things before. He knows the doctor’s blood type and where his great-grandparents are buried, but he doesn’t know any of these until John the Doctor says them with a smile.  
  
His hair is growing longer than usual, curling just slightly at the ends. Sebastian says, “I have an older brother, he’s a berk, too.”  
  
John laughs and shakes his head, “Harry’s a woman, Sebastian — people are always saying that to me. I think it’s the way I talk about her.”  
  
“Oh. My mistake,” Sebastian amends and drinks from his glass. This is the fourth drink and as far as he can tell, John’s third.  
  
“Alright, so tell me about your brother, why is he a berk?”  
  
“Well, for starters, he’s a priest.”  
  
“Oh, no,” John starts laughing.  
  
“So every time I’m over there, he’s all, ‘when are you going to grow up, Sebastian, when are you going to get married, you need a wife, and come to a sermon on Sunday, and say grace, and lift with your knees—’ you know what I mean? It’s such a nuisance, I avoid him at all costs.”  
  
“Me, too,” John says, waving down the bartender, “She’s always trying to give me things to pacify me into speaking with her. Take this, Johnny, take it, I don’t need it, take it,” John rolls his eyes.  
  
“Like a pet?”  
  
“Exactly!” John exclaims, “Like a fucking pup.”  
  
Sebastian tosses his head back, laughing, and John’s grin is just as wide.  
  
The bartender collects their empty glasses, smirking. “You two alright?”  
  
“Absolutely brilliant. Another round?” he asks, nodding at Sebastian.  
  
“Yeah,” Sebastian agrees.  
  
“Back in a moment,” the bartender says and leaves them to their raucous laughter.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian wakes up the next morning on the floor of his flat, his head pounding. He finds a fifteen second video of John the Doctor standing on a picnic table, shouting Romeo and Juliet and it looks almost looks like the picnic table in Matthew’s back porch but he can’t be sure. Matthew’s out of town for a few days anyway.  
  
He’s got a handful of texts from John, three that make no sense, four of random keys and the last one reads _What on earth did we do last night?_  
  
Sebastian rolls over laughing, and laughs until his lungs burn. He doesn’t text John back.  
  
-  
  
There is a group of Serbian middle aged women who live in Milos’ house. Milos is an arms dealer, relatively small time, but is growing a name out of specializing in explosives. Sebastian doesn’t like him much but he makes nice for the sake of business. His house is full of middle aged women feeding children, making food and gossip, and his garage is full of Zastava assault rifles and C-4.  
  
Milos sets a dirty glass before Sebastian and pours cheap whiskey in it. He speaks in a perfect English accent, “I have to say, I’m surprised you’re here, Sebastian.”  
  
“Is that so?”  
  
Milos lifts a glass in toast. “To the dead,” he says minimally and Sebastian takes his cue to drink. “Well, I figured once Moriarty was gone, I thought you’d step down. Get off his lap?”  
  
Sebastian laughs, forcing it into something that resembles self-deprecation. “You know better than to believe the rumors.”  
  
Milos looks mildly victorious with himself. “Maybe I do believe them. Maybe I don’t. It doesn’t make you any more of a professional. I want to make sure you know what you’re doing. I wouldn’t want the absence of your leash to compromise our operations.”  
  
“Moriarty is dead,” Sebastian says.  
  
Time slows to a grind and Sebastian is out of his chair before Milos can move and in another instant, Sebastian sinks a dirty penknife into Milos’ gut. Milos thrashes, reaching blindly to grip Sebastian’s neck but the injury has already weakened him and they hardly grapple before Sebastian has Milos face down on the floor.  
  
In Serbia, a larger arms dealer who calls himself Abraham Lincoln asked Sebastian to fix a problem for him. Milos doesn’t mean anything but half the gun runners in Europe will now think twice before selling to Serbia. This is London, where Sebastian forces the gates open and dictates where the graves are dug.  
  
Milos is choking on his own blood and Sebastian laughs at him.  
  
“London is mine now.”  
  
-  
  
Sebastian takes a cab to Matthew’s house, sits outside for an hour, then goes back home. The house is full of people and warm lighting, and his second story window is broken. Sebastian thinks of Golem and his advice about making friends and goes home.  
  
His apartment is cold and he drinks himself to sleep, curled under his red bed sheets, alone.  
  
-  
  
In all honesty, it began in Greece.  
  
Sebastian dies in Afghanistan and wakes up in a private Greek hospital with Jim sitting three feet away. He looks absolutely harmless, but when he speaks, it’s like liquid.  
  
“Hello, Sebastian.”  
  
Sebastian tries to sit up on shaky elbows and falls back onto the bed. His throat is dry but he manages to croak, “Where am I?”  
  
“Greece. Don’t move so much, you’ll pull the stitches.”  
  
“Greece? Stitches?”  
  
“Athens, to be precise. Stitches, keeping your pretty little entrails inside you.” He’s dressed in a white shirt and jeans and his eyes are bruised purple like he hasn’t slept in days.  
  
“Who are you?”  
  
“Jim Moriarty,” Jim smiles, “Hi.”  
  
“How do you know my name?”  
  
“I’ve been watching you, Sebastian. I watched you in Sussex, in Afghanistan, I watched you sleep while you were out, it was lovely. It was like art, how you fluttered awake like a butterfly from a cocoon. A tiny little butterfly.”  
  
-  
  
Sebastian calls John the next night and asks, “What are you doing tomorrow?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know, getting pissed and terrorizing the greater London area.” John the Doctor sounds hesitant but only for a second. “D’you want to come with?”  
  
Sebastian lays back on his bed and scratches idly at his belly button. “How about before you get arrested for terrorism, we get some food? On me.”  
  
“I never say no to a free meal.”  
  
“Thing is,” Sebastian says, “I’m new in London and unless you want to head down to Lewes for some takeaway, I could use a suggestion.”  
  
“Ah, I see,” John says and Sebastian can hear him shuffling papers. “No worries, I’ll take you to my favorite place. Meet me at Willows, say, around eight?”  
  
“Eight,” Sebastian confirms and disconnects.  
  
With John the Doctor away, his room is dark. His blankets are pooled at his feet and his skin feels a little too wretched. Ever since Afghanistan, he’s had the curled branches of the chestnut tree scarred on his stomach. He doesn’t even know who shot him that day — there were so many already injured and by the time he made it to the tree, it didn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter now, because Jim saved him.  
  
-  
  
Word spreads about Milos and Abraham Lincoln. Gregor is shipping fifteen teenaged Russian boys and smokes cigars all over the warehouse when Sebastian arrives. He chews a toothpick and picks two boys to send into Germany for a client. While they’re prepped for shipping, Gregor leans forward and asks, “What are you doing to London, Sebastian?”  
  
Sebastian dreams of a blaze as high as London Tower. Instead, he leaves the shipping address in Gregor’s hand and says, “Don’t bruise the merchandise.”  
  
-  
  
John is already at Willows when Sebastian arrives, leaning against the wall with a phone pressed to his ear.  
  
After a moment, Sebastian’s phone rings. He answers it and doesn’t realize he’s smirking, “Look to your left, I’m right here.”  
  
“Oh,” John says and turns to meet him. “There you are.”  
  
John says the restaurant is within walking distance and Sebastian says he prefers side streets if they’re going to walk. The place isn’t far but they walk slow, bumping shoulders and discussing the footie match neither of them are particularly interested in.  
  
“I’m more of a rugby man,” Sebastian offers instead.  
  
John looks back at him for a long moment, a surprised half-smile forming on his lips. “Me too.”  
  
The restaurant is a Chinese place and it’s absolutely divine. Sebastian orders more than he can reasonably eat and by the end of the meal, he and John are rotating plates and making bad jokes. “This is really very good,” Sebastian comments. “Actually, this is some of the best I’ve ever had, and I’ve been to China.”  
  
“Really?” John says, gulping down water. “Where in China?”  
  
“Oh, here and there,” Sebastian shrugs, “I was mostly passing through, but I stayed in Nanking for a day and half, waiting for a ride.”  
  
“Did you see any sites?”  
  
“Not really, but I’d like to go back someday. Maybe learn a dialect or two.”  
  
“Is it your job that keeps you traveling?” John asks and doesn’t meet his eye.  
  
“I travel,” Sebastian smirks, “for the pleasure of it.”  
  
John is silent in return but the very tips of his ears turn pink and Sebastian finds himself utterly charmed. He chuckles softly to himself, “It’s sort of the reason I don’t know any food places in London. I never spend much time here, but I want to change that. It’s why I moved into the neighborhood.”  
  
“Sort of?” John asks.  
  
Sebastian clutches the fork in his hand. “I’m tired of moving around. It’s like every time I go, I meet new people and see all these shiny things but they all pass in a blur. I’m tired, I’m over thirty, I want to stand still for a moment. I don’t know — I want some stability. Does that make any sense?”  
  
“Yeah,” John says and clears his throat. “Yes, it does.”  
  
-  
  
In London, the sunset reflects on skyscrapers, rusting them like bikes left in the rain. Sebastian and John wander under the amber shadow and brush shoulders on empty side streets. The sky turns down and John admits he has work in the morning and should probably head home.  
  
At the door, under streetlight glow — Sebastian walked him home, hands hidden in his pockets and John’s ice blue eyes — John turns the lock and stands still for a moment, a contrast startling to how rapidly Sebastian’s heart is beating. “I’ll see you later?”  
  
Sebastian’s hands tremble in his pockets and he aches, he fucking shudders, but he hears his physician’s laughter and says, “Yes.”  
  
-  
  
Sebastian walks home in the dark and pushes his door open with the brunt of his shoulder. He’s barely through the door before his phone rings. “What is it?” he says in lieu of greeting.  
  
“Colonel, sir,” Agnes says, “You asked me to call if there was significant response from the Milos affair.”  
  
Sebastian tosses his keys away absently and shrugs off his jacket, “Alright,” he says and thinks of the group of middle aged women with dead children at their feet. “What happened?”  
  
“Two things, sir. One, Abraham Lincoln has sent an influx of clients in our direction and restored others.”  
  
“Oh, joy,” Sebastian deadpans.  
  
“Two, a 3.2% rise in terrorist related violence in Serbia,” she continues.  
  
“Excellent,” Sebastian sighs, slightly annoyed. “Will that be all?”  
  
“One more thing, Colonel. The package you sent to Germany arrived today. Herr Munich sent a shipment back, along with his regards.”  
  
Sebastian kicks off his boots and socks. “Good, make sure it gets to the school children,” he says, undoing his belt, “and SoHo.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“Stop bothering me now, Agnes,” Sebastian says and disconnects.  
  
With his flat quiet again, Sebastian shuts off all the lights, kicks off his jeans, and lies on the floor of his kitchen. The hardwood scratches at his back and Sebastian thinks of John’s ice eyes and soft-looking mouth. He pulls at the wood with his fingernails and slams his head back into the floor. He repeats the motion until he can feel the hot trickle of blood at the back of his neck.  
  
His mouth is full of violence again, the death of London crushed into his throat. “I kill mothers for fun,” he says to himself, “and sell their children for money.”  
  
Sebastian bleeds and pulls until there are splinters stuck beneath his nails.  
  
-  
  
Agnes is new. She’s got short black hair and thin, pale lips and she can dance the tarantella and shoot a man from 900 meters. She leads Sebastian’s special operations team and occasionally handles errands. She’s efficient and brutal but only for the right price. She’s just a mercenary and she’s naïve enough that Sebastian can’t trust her.  
  
She calls him “Colonel” because of his military history and he replies, “Shut the fuck up.”  
  
-  
  
Sebastian’s at the city limits, dumping bodies with Agnes — digging graves builds character — when John calls. Sebastian stands away from her and answers the phone. “John the Doctor, how lovely to hear from you. How are you doing?”  
  
“Mr. Moran, I’m swell. I was wondering if you were free this evening?”  
  
Sebastian almost mourns. “I’m not, actually. But I am tomorrow.”  
  
“Oh,” John says softly. “I’m only free late in the evening tomorrow, after nine.”  
  
“Well,” Sebastian grins to himself. “Nine is past my bedtime but I’ll make an exception for you.”  
  
“Oh, how very noble,” John says. “Such a shame I’m going to get you pissed.”  
  
“It’s a damn shame,” Sebastian agrees.  
  
“Listen, Seb,” John begins tentatively, “I know its not my place but I— I suppose I was wondering— Are you cleared?”  
  
“Cleared?” Sebastian asks but automatically realizes the ‘clear’ to which John is referring. After he was diagnosed with Chlamydia, his doctor prescribed a seven day antibiotic treatment and a diet of strict celibacy. “Uh, well, not technically, I’m actually just waiting for my doctor to clear me.”  
  
“Oh, right. I was just—”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“Colonel,” Agnes calls, “Can we get on?”  
  
“Well, I’ve got to go now, John,” Sebastian says, clearing his throat, “I’ll call you later and we’ll make plans or something.”  
  
“Yeah, definitely. I’ll see you.”  
  
-  
  
For dinner, Sebastian meets a prospective client who’s got hands in the Sinaloa Cartel honeypot. His name is Salvador and he grins at Sebastian with gaps in his teeth. A blond girl sits on his left and a cheap-looking Uzi sits on his lap. Sebastian is unimpressed but he makes nice for business.  
  
Agnes, in his ear, tells him the deal is too risky, too flashy, and for not enough power or profit. She doesn’t understand why he would even consider it. “Gangsters like him will only draw attention to us.”  
  
Sebastian drinks his wine as a sign of good faith but doesn’t close the deal. He can’t have money hungry megalomaniacs trying to touch England. He needs them to realize where they belong. Sebastian walks away from the table and kicks all of their diluted product out of his fucking bone yard. Sinaloa is angry but Sinaloa is quiet.  
  
-  
  
John’s lips are soft when Sebastian finally kisses him. Wet and warm, they part just lightly for the cool brush of John’s tongue. They’re at the door of 221B, John pressed into the black wood just enough that Sebastian can feel like he won’t run away. He hasn’t noticed that John is pressing back, curling his fingers at Sebastian’s waist, pulling him in just minutely.  
  
They part, liquid blues flickering street lamp gold, and Sebastian can’t remember how they got here, doesn’t understand the fabric of reality. “John — I’ve never.”  
  
“Nor I,” John breathes and he clears his throat, and then repeats it. “I’ve never either.”  
  
“Is it— is it okay?” Sebastian asks and his throat feels ice cold.  
  
John looks lost for a moment but his features soon clear. “I think so.”  
  
Sebastian can’t help the ear-splitting grin that follows. John matches it and suddenly the outside world snaps between them again. Sebastian steps back and scratches at the back of his neck. “So,” he starts.  
  
John’s smile is nowhere near diminished. “Do you want to come up for tea?”  
  
If Jim knew what Sebastian was about to do, he might have laughed. He might have recoiled with disgust or rolled his eyes or be furious. But Sebastian isn’t here for Jim. He’s here because John has metamorphic blue eyes and three dimensional speech patterns. He’s here for John the Doctor, the Forgiver, the Immerser.  
  
“Yeah,” Sebastian says and crosses the threshold.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian woke up in a Greek hospital and Jim said, “I would like you to work for me, my tiny butterfly. I want you to flutter your pretty wings across Europe and tell all the gun-running candy men that I’m going to swallow London whole. I’m going to rip the continents apart in the shifting fury of my tectonic plates. Don’t you want to see it?” Jim smiled, wild and utterly beatific. “It’ll be like a meteor shower. You’ll like it, Tiny.”  
  
In Athens, Greece, Sebastian is listening to Jim and there’s an empty grave before him — grave digging, character — with a dead body beside it. “Why would I?”  
  
Jim leans forward to whisper, “Because, Tiny, God abandoned us and now we’re throwing a tantrum. Because your teachers didn’t call your name enough and Daddy left you and now I’m going to defy everything, starting with my city.”  
  
“Your city?”  
  
“Mandate of heaven, divine right,” Jim waves a hand. “Call it what you like.”  
  
Sebastian steps out of the grave and Jim lugs the body in, white hands smeared red. It lands with a thump, and Jim laughs. Jim stripes blood red down his purple black eyes and says, “Join me, Tiny.”  
  
-  
  
There is a night of absolute darkness where Sebastian can’t sleep and instead of slipping out for a walk, he presses dry kisses on John’s throat. It’s past midnight and John said he was tired earlier, but he’s awake, too. It’s an almost imperceptible whisper when John says, “Seb.”  
  
They’ve been dating for months and this is not the first time Sebastian has slept over. Once they were comfortable sleeping together, sharing space felt natural. John the Doctor is warm and he makes it easier for Sebastian to sleep.  
  
John the Doctor says, “Do you ever wonder how we came to be here?”  
  
Sebastian thinks of the steeple slopes at his mother’s church in Lewes. “I don’t follow.”  
  
“I’m a straight man, Sebastian. I mean, I know it sounds ridiculous, considering you’re lying half-naked in my arms, but. I still consider myself heterosexual.”  
  
“There’s nothing ridiculous about it,” Sebastian says and reaches for the bedside lamp so he can see John.  
  
John glances at the light and back at Sebastian. “I wasn’t drunk. The night we first kissed. I wanted to be because I thought it would make it easier for me to let myself relax around you, but then you were standing there beside me, and I couldn’t be. You are so— god, I haven’t even a word for it but it was good and I couldn’t be drunk for it. I couldn’t miss any more of it.”  
  
Sebastian watches him, John the Doctor, and his chest twists and he thinks of crushing butterfly wings under his fist, the grotesque satisfaction of how well they crumple. “I was a little drunk,” Sebastian offers, “I was terrified of you.”  
  
John smiles faintly, “It was a relief when you made the first move. I’d only known you for a few days, really, and it seemed like so much work to keep away from you.” He clears his throat and looks away, eyes trained on the ceiling. “Do you know what, though?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“My best friend— my best friend died just months before we met. He died and I like to think that he would have— he wouldn’t have liked you,” John laughs softly. “But he would have me wanted to be happy.”  
  
“Is that how we got here?” Sebastian asks and his throat is dry.  
  
“I think so,” John replies. “I think it is.”  
  
He kisses Sebastian a little desperately and Sebastian shuts the bedside lamp off. John’s hands are still tentative after all these months but Sebastian guides him when he needs to and the dark of his room is a comfort, impartial to their peril.  
  
-  
  
After Greece, Jim hauls Sebastian all over the world, smirking behind aviators and .357 revolvers. He never tells Sebastian what they’re doing, what the plan is. Jim asks Sebastian to shoot certain people or certain terrorists or, occasionally, to buy certain strawberries. Sebastian has to import them from Guatemala but he is never allowed to have any. That is, until the kamikaze cab driver dies at the feet of Sherlock Holmes.  
  
Jim takes them to Luxembourg, shouting in Hebrew to anyone who isn’t Sebastian. They rent a small flat in Reisdorf and Sebastian comes back from a business meeting to find the furniture rearranged. The living room has been cleared entirely and there is loud ballroom music playing over the speakers. Jim is standing in the center of the room, eating strawberries and drinking from a glass of white wine.  
  
“Jim?” Sebastian says cautiously, because Jim was gutting a pig when Sebastian came home yesterday and his increasingly erratic behavior is unsettling.  
  
“Tiny,” he turns towards Sebastian. “Care for a strawberry?”  
  
“No, thank you.”  
  
Jim approaches him, holding a strawberry in his palm. He smiles at Sebastian, moving in unison with the cellos in the song playing. Sebastian watches him for a moment but accepts the strawberry when Jim presses it to his lips. “Delicious, isn’t it? Such an indulgence for me. We all have our vices, don’t we, my Prince?”  
  
Sebastian chews and doesn’t answer. Jim walks in a circle around him and continues anyway. “Some people drink, others consume drugs. I eat strawberries and brain piglets.” Jim shrugs like it can’t be helped, “Oh well. Tell me, darling boy, do you know how to waltz?”  
  
“Enough to fake it,” Sebastian replies.  
  
Jim clicks his tongue, “No, that won’t do. I’ll have to teach you. I was going to dance with Lucrezia over there but after a while, the blood loss can be too much, y’know?”  
  
Sebastian glances at Lucrezia, a prostitute Jim picked up last night. She was disemboweled this morning and left slumped against the wall. She’s been dying since Sebastian left; he’ll have to have one of the spec ops teams bury her.  
  
They stand in the center of the room and Jim instructs Sebastian in a box step first. “Back straight, Tiny, this is important.”  
  
Sebastian’s back can’t get any straighter and Jim says, “Make note of this. Form is important. In a room full of other waltzers, you have to know where you’re going.” Jim is pulling him around the room then, twisting Sebastian, bending and coaxing.  
  
“Why are we doing this?” Sebastian finally asks.  
  
Over the music, over Lucrezia’s whimpers, and his own vicious sneer, Jim says, “You’ll need it, Sebastian. To dance on Sherlock’s grave with me.”  
  
-  
  
Agnes is wearing a leather jacket and green pants when Sebastian shows up to dinner. DI Dimmock is wearing a sweater vest and loafers and Sebastian keeps the straightest face he possibly can. Tonight he’s Agnes’ brother, out to dinner with his sister and her new boyfriend. The restaurant is casual and populated enough that DI Dimmock has to raise his voice when he talks about what he does for a living.  
  
Agnes sends Sebastian wary glances all night, searching for a cue that Sebastian doesn’t give. Dimmock is a desperate man, Sebastian learns, and decides Agnes can put the front up for a bit longer.  
  
-  
  
On the night John and Sebastian get together, it is by no means an accident. They drink together at Willow’s, hit on a few decent-looking girls, eat and joke, but it all feels like a pretense to Sebastian. John smirks over a drink and the icy blues stray towards him during conversations. His gaze creates heat at the back of Sebastian’s neck, building anticipation.  
  
The door to 221B is dark and Sebastian knows something has changed between them. He kisses John first, but John the Doctor arches forward. Sebastian dreams of burning buildings and abortionist malpractice and John the Forgiver allows him to cross the threshold.  
  
For months after Jim is dead, Sebastian is not at peace. He cuts off all his hair and wanders down red light districts in empty countries. When he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t dream in Russia or Poland or Romania, Sebastian would hunch his shoulders into a confessional and beg.  
  
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”  
  
John the Doctor smiles at him and says, “Do you want to come up for tea?”  
  
-  
  
After Sebastian is allowed to eat strawberries and waltz over dead bodies, everything changes. In Greece, Jim had made it clear Sebastian was a liaison of sorts. Underbelly criminals don’t trust any stranger to breeze through but Sebastian is charismatic enough to ease the way. “All it takes is some elbow grease,” Jim said in a thick American accent.  
  
Now, Sebastian dances and responds to any name Jim calls him and Jim looks at him differently, with a sneer on his face. One day they’re walking through the warehouse of Gregor’s shipments and Jim trips. It’s only a stumble, a single awkward jerk, but the room falls silent.  
  
Jim laughs at himself, a disbelieving snort, and gives the cue for Sebastian to laugh. One of the spec ops boys mistakes it and laughs quietly. Jim pounces, “Do you find that funny?”  
  
The spec ops kid — a private security recruit, very good at his job but that’s not the point — is utterly still, “No.”  
  
“You laughed,” Jim accuses in sing-song.  
  
“Sebastian laughed,” the mercenary counters.  
  
“He did.” Jim glances at Sebastian. “Is it funny to you Sebastian?”  
  
The lilt in Jim’s eyebrow is unmistakable and Sebastian is almost giddy to comply. Everyone here should fear Jim; Jim could tear them all from limb to limb like cherry stems. “It’s hilarious.”  
  
“What about him, Sebastian?” Jim asks, nodding at the kid, “Is he funny?”  
  
Sebastian unholsters his Glock 17. “He’s a barrel of laughs,” Sebastian says, and shoots the mercenary in his face.  
  
The spec ops team is completely still, watching in shock and soaking their shoes in blood. Jim laughs uproariously and the impish grin is absolutely feral. For that split second, Sebastian knows something has changed, something is going very wrong, but Jim’s approval feels exquisite.  
  
It’s the kind of perfection only read of in scripture and Sebastian didn’t even have to beg.  
  
-  
  
After dinner, John will sometimes rummage through old records and play music while they read. Sebastian always enjoyed a good blues album and drags John into a dance. It’s nothing fancy, just two steps and Sebastian shimmying his hips to make John laugh.  
  
The next song is slower and Sebastian is glad for the lack of height difference because John’s mouth is so interesting. Ice blue eyes pale and searching, John bites his lip and Sebastian shifts his hips against him. The room is warm with John’s breath and John’s hands, chests pressed together. Sebastian can barely keep his head and wanes further when John mouths the words to _Blood In My Eyes_ against Sebastian’s mouth.  
  
Sebastian sounds absolutely reverent but he says, “Tell me everything about you.”  
  
John looks surprised. “How do you mean?”  
  
“Tell me how you were as a child,” he says. “I want to know you. I want to know everything about you, god, I sound ridiculous and I can’t help myself.”  
  
John smiles faintly, his hands at Sebastian’s waist, pulling him closer. “My middle name is Hamish.”  
  
Sebastian laughs. “Is it? That’s fantastic.”  
  
“No, it’s horrific,” John says. “What’s yours?”  
  
“Fergus.”  
  
“I’d say we’re about even,” John offers, “In terms of middle names.”  
  
“Definitely.”  
  
-  
  
“I don’t know how to have a relationship like this,” Sebastian confesses.  
  
It’s the morning after their first night together and John, shaving in the bathroom, nicks himself. “Shit,” he murmurs and presses tissue paper to the wound.  
  
Sebastian makes to leave him alone but John stops him. “Come back, Seb.”  
  
He returns and hesitates in the doorway, rubbing at his eye for lack of anything else to do. John stares at him for a moment, considering. “A relationship like what?”  
  
“With a man,” Sebastian says, unashamed.  
  
John sets down his razor and Sebastian would have kept it to himself if he thought John would cut himself. “I’m just a person, Sebastian. I eat and breathe and sleep. I’ve got scars and faults and hopes like any other person. Isn’t that what matters? I mean, we’re all just people and I know it’s different, but it doesn’t have to be. We’re just people—”  
  
John doesn’t finish his sentence because Sebastian crosses the room and kisses him. Sebastian doesn’t remember moving but he remembers John’s words. When they part, he sees the ice blue hopes John was referring to. It shouldn’t be so simple, but it feels righted. “We’re equals,” Sebastian says, “That’s all that’s important, right?”  
  
John the Immerser is absolutely calm. “That’s all.”  
  
-  
  
Meeting Mrs. Hudson isn’t as large a deal as Sebastian expected. The old woman is kind, if not to a fault, and she cooks them all breakfast before Sebastian is even awake. John smirks at him, clearly amused, and leads him down the stairs. “You’ll be fine, just be kind in return and you’ll get on fine.”  
  
Before they reach the living room, Sebastian holds John against the stairs banister and kisses him. John is so constant and for that fraction of a second, the nervousness isn’t a farce.  
  
-  
  
After their initial meeting, Sebastian and John regularly set a place for Mrs. Hudson at the table. Sebastian cooks on Fridays and Saturdays or whenever the notion strikes and Mrs. Hudson laughs at all his terrible jokes. When Sebastian works nights, she makes him food to have during his break. “I threw some mints in there for afterwards.”  
  
Sebastian, struck by the action, kisses her cheek and says, “You are an amazing woman, Mother Hudson.”  
  
She smiles wide, misty-eyed. “You know you remind me of my brother, Seb.”  
  
“What’s he like?” Sebastian asks, shrugging on his jacket.  
  
“Oh, he’s long since passed, but he was a very kind man, very gentle, and protective of me. A good man, just like you.” She pats Sebastian’s cheek adoringly. “I’m glad you’re with John now; he needs a person like you. It’s been hard on him without Sherlock.”  
  
“I do my best,” Sebastian offers and pulls on his lunch satchel. “Thank you, Mother Hudson. I’ll be back in the morning.”  
  
-  
  
Oliver picks Sebastian up from Gregor’s warehouse — there’s a shipment of organs and redheaded Ukrainian girls passing through London — and drives him to a warehouse on the opposite side of town. “Hey, Olly, how are you doing? How’s your mother?”  
  
Oliver, who doesn’t actually speak English but understands, replies breezily in French. Sebastian hates French but pretends to understand it anyway.  
  
“That’s great, let’s get going to Max’s place, yeah?”  
  
Olly spends the entire ride speaking animated French and Sebastian stops to ask whether his shipment came in. Olly only grins, the bottom row of his teeth flashing. Sebastian smokes half a pack in anticipation.  
  
John and Mother Hudson think Sebastian works for a security company, mostly as a bouncer, bodyguard work here and there, and, on the rare occasion, overseas. In actuality, work means shaking the Greek economy, poking at Russo-American tensions, moving ivory across borders, and bribing rebel factions with antique pistols.  
  
Tonight, though, Maxwell has brought Sebastian a treat.  
  
-  
  
John is asleep when Sebastian returns but it only takes a few kisses to rouse him. John’s skin is hot with sleep, pillow creases on his flushed cheeks. It only takes a few more kisses, a few bites, and Sebastian skimming his fingertips over John’s waistband before his neck is flushing, too.  
  
“Seb,” John says, and it sounds like an admonishment — John probably has a shift this morning — but it feels like encouragement.  
  
Sunlight barely lights the room through a crack in the curtains and the few rays that make it fall across John’s bare chest. Sebastian kisses everywhere light touches, pushing John’s pajama bottoms to the ground. John’s skin is hot everywhere and John’s flushing chest and drowsy eyes pronounce it. John tugs at Sebastian’s shirt and he obliges in pulling it over his head. Sitting away for a moment, Sebastian kicks off his jeans and pants, watching John do away with his clothing, too.  
  
Finally nude, Sebastian straddles John, rocking down gently and kissing John frantically. Still groggy, John moans into his mouth, nibbling at Sebastian’s lips and snaking a hand between them to rub Sebastian’s cock. “Wait,” Seb whispers.  
  
The next instant, he’s sucking John’s earlobe, John’s neck. He grazes his teeth down a jack-rabbiting pulse and past the jut of his collarbone. John’s stomach is soft and sensitive, twitching and flexing by the time Sebastian is biting his hipbones. John arches into Sebastian, murmuring encouragement in low whispers, “Mmm, yeah, c’mon, Seb, c’mon.”  
  
Sebastian flicks his eyes up at John as the sunlight falls over his ribs and he finds himself happy to comply. Sebastian’s never been much of a talker but he can make John feel good and it doesn’t seem to bother him.  
  
He starts slow, a few licks, a few small sucks and John coils up, tensing and inadvertently thrusting into Seb’s mouth. Sebastian holds his hips down and laps at the crown of his cock, sliding his lips around John to take as much of him as he can.  
  
John is twisting his hips in small, tight circles, trying to be further inside. Sebastian closes his fist around what he can’t take and builds a rhythm. His mouth is heavy with the weight of John’s cock on his tongue, sliding between his lips, precise and obscene and amazing. Above, John is grunting and carding his fingers through Sebastian’s hair like he can barely control himself.  
  
His eyes are blown wide, body twisted a bit so he can watch Sebastian take him down. It’s wet and messy and John must’ve missed him because he comes quickly, in hot stripes down Sebastian’s throat. John lets Sebastian suck him for a few more moments before beckoning him with a flick of his wrist. Sebastian climbs up to him, wiping his mouth and pursing his lips.  
  
John’s neck is flushed a deeper red and he says, “Seb, are you alright?”  
  
Sebastian nods and kisses him, sucking on his tongue until John kisses back, skimming his hands up the back of Sebastian’s thighs. John flips them and looms over him for a moment, his hands are carefully clear of Sebastian’s chestnut tree scar — they’ve agreed they need more time to feel comfortable in that fashion — and shimmies down to make room for his hand. “Do you want—”  
  
“No,” Sebastian says and closes his eyes against the pressure of John’s fist around his cock. “Like that, yeah, I’m so close already, don’t stop.”  
  
John tips Sebastian’s jaw up and kisses his chin. “You’re so hard, Seb. Have you been waiting all night? All night for me?”  
  
Sebastian’s lungs feel constricted and John’s hand, spreading spit and precome in a tight fist, the incessant heat, and the sunrays all work against him. He comes too soon but John promises not to hold it against him.  
  
“I’m still going to fuck you in the shower.”  
  
-  
  
When word gets out that Sebastian had a private meeting with a member of the Sinaloa Cartel, competitors are furious. Agnes sends Sebastian a text message with the words, “Trouble in paradise.”  
  
He’s been sitting in a cathedral for a few hours a night, instead of concussing himself when he can’t sleep, and decides to twist everyone around a bit. Zimmerman Telegram style, Sebastian pits the Mexican cartels against each other. In the morning, there are mutilated bodies on Mexico’s highways and Agnes sends a text that says, “LOL.”  
  
-  
  
Maxwell’s warehouse smells amazing when Sebastian arrives. In the center of the room, the steak has been prepped and served on a platter. The chairs have tiger skin rugs over them and when Sebastian sits, the fine hairs tickle gently at the back of his neck.  
  
Maxwell is talking, boasting, “I do believe this is my finest specimen yet.”  
  
“Where did you find it?” Sebastian asks.  
  
“India,” Maxwell says. “I hunted it myself. As soon as I saw it, I knew you had to have it.”  
  
“Why’s that?” Sebastian asks as Olly serves them.  
  
Maxwell grins wolfishly, uncorking a bottle of red wine. “No one else would appreciate it as much.”  
  
-  
  
“Are you coming home in time for dinner?” John asks.  
  
Sebastian steps out of the restaurant where he’s having a second dinner with Agnes and DI Dimmock and shivers at the cold. “I don’t think I can tonight.”  
  
“So I shouldn’t make anything?”  
  
“Well, eat if you’re hungry, obviously.”  
  
“I’m not, I had lunch with friends.”  
  
“Then don’t cook,” Sebastian sighs, crossing his arms. “Look, I’ve got to go.”  
  
“This is the third time, Sebastian,” John says, agitated.  
  
Sebastian scratches the back of his neck. “I know, I’ll make it up to you. We’ll talk in the morning.”  
  
“I have work. I’ll call you after I get off my shift.”  
  
“Fine, just, I’ve got to go, Johnny,” Sebastian says, and John disconnects almost immediately.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian and John sleep together most nights, in the dark and warmth of John’s room. Sebastian still has a flat but John insists that it’s always too cold and at some point, Sebastian doesn’t pay the heat at his flat at all anymore. He buys groceries when John is low on cash because it’s easier than going out of their way for an ATM. He pays the electric bill and the water bill and hands John his receipts as an afterthought.  
  
He bruises his shoulders doing crunches on the hardwood and John picks up the roll out mat from his flat for him to exercise on. They go out on weekends with a bloke called Mike and come back to 221B afterwards. Sebastian sleeps over more often than not and he knows how Mother Hudson takes her tea. He knows what triggers John’s nightmares, he knows the color spectrum of John’s sand blond hair and he knows if he doesn’t water the plants and pick up the mail, John will roll his eyes at him.  
  
It’s terrifying in one way and natural in another.  
  
They’re going to bed one night, over two years since Jim died, over a year since Seb met John in that white room and John comes into their room with toothpaste spilling from his mouth. “Seb,” he says with some effort, “Do you live here?”  
  
Sebastian sets his wallet on the bedside table and says, “Y’know, I’ve been meaning to ask you that.”  
  
-  
  
“I want to meet your brother,” John says once during breakfast.  
  
“No,” Sebastian whines, “not my brother, anyone but him.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“He’s an asshole,” Sebastian says, “He’ll just act all uppity and make homophobic comments.”  
  
“Is he a homophobe?”  
  
Sebastian pauses, twisting in his chair. “He could be,” he says lamely.  
  
John snorts at him. “Who is else is there, then?”  
  
“My grandmother lives in Galway,” Sebastian offers.  
  
John smirks like he’s won something. “I could use a holiday.”  
  
-  
  
If Sebastian lives here, if 221B is his flat, his flat with John, then why is there a locked door? Sebastian’s never picked the lock but he knows what’s inside. It’s a room of boxes and hidden items, preserved and ignored. John never goes inside, never speaks of it; he walks past the room like he’s forgotten anything that ever lived inside.  
  
-  
  
DI Dimmock is an easy mark, so much so that it’s almost embarrassing. He’s young and impressionable and he’s been hungry since DI Lestrade was demoted. Agnes wears her skirts just shy of too short and blouses just shy of too low so that when everyone in the room stares at her, covets her, DI Dimmock will feel powerful with the girl on his arm.  
  
Sebastian sits through a meal wearing an expensive suit and ordering in Italian and DI Dimmock rises to the idea of being treated with respect. It’s almost too easy and Jim would probably have never bothered but Jim is dead now. Sebastian owns this city and he can run as many long cons as he pleases.  
  
-  
  
A few nights after his second dinner with DI Dimmock, John is waiting for Sebastian when he gets home. It’s past midnight but John is wide awake and Sebastian is exhausted and covered in gun grease and dirt. John is quiet but when he stands, Sebastian’s stomach drops.  
  
Sebastian doesn’t have time to speak before John says, “Where have you been?”  
  
-  
  
Maxwell is right, of course, and the steak is magnificent. Bengal tigers are Sebastian’s favorite.  
  
-  
  
“Out,” Sebastian replies vaguely, “Is something the matter?”  
  
“Look, Seb, I get that this is different and new for you — it’s new for me, too, but if you’re going through some sort of— of, I don’t know, straight panic,” John waves his arms around elaborately. “Now would be the time to tell me.”  
  
“What— straight panic?”  
  
“It’s bad enough that I don’t understand our relationship — I don’t need you panicking alone in some pub.”  
  
“John, Johnny, wait, what are you talking about? Where is all this coming from?”  
  
“This is the fifth night in the last two weeks, Sebastian. You disappear at all hours, you’re canceling dinners, come and go as you please—”  
  
“I didn’t know I needed permission to leave the flat.”  
  
“That’s not what I meant,” John hisses, “And you know it. I wake up at three or four in the morning and you’re just gone — where do you go at that hour that you can’t go to during the day?”  
  
“Out!” Sebastian returns.  
  
“Out where?” John demands, his voice raising.  
  
“Out for a walk? I can’t sleep sometimes so I go for walks!”  
  
“That is bullshit, Sebastian. Why can’t you just tell me?”  
  
“Why is it so fucking important,” Sebastian argues. “Why does it matter!”  
  
“Because,” John shouts, “Because I’m standing here asking you in all honesty and you won’t say. You fuck off whenever you like, I can’t meet your brother and I’m just fucking sick of you keeping things from me—”  
  
“I keep things from you?” Sebastian repeats, incredulously, “What about—”  
  
“So just tell me now if you’re over the ‘gay’ phase—”  
  
“—the entire room full of your dead ex-boyfriend’s possessions—”  
  
“—so I can move on with my life—”  
  
“—you literally lock me out of there and you never talk about him and yet you insist he was so important to you and brilliant—”  
  
“—without you because you are clearly not in this anymore. You’re not in this room with me, this flat and you’re even letting the plants die—”  
  
“—but you won’t ever talk to me! How can I? How am I supposed to be without if you keep the important parts away from me? Just because you repress everything and pretend nothing touches you, doesn’t mean none of it is there anymore.”  
  
“—so obviously I mean nothing to you.” John finishes and they both fall silent.  
  
Sebastian is stunned for a moment, catching up to everything John was shouting over him. “What?” They say simultaneously, “How can you say that?”  
  
“Sherlock was never my boyfriend,” John says in a low voice.  
  
“But I am, Johnny,” Sebastian says and feels like his knees are giving out. “I’m your boyfriend and you shut me out of that part of your life like I can’t know, like you don’t trust me.”  
  
“Of course I trust you,” John says quietly and there is suddenly less space between them, the world thinning to ice blues. “But you have to trust me, too.”  
  
“I walk around, John, honestly. I pace my flat or go to work or smoke cigarettes until my fingers are stiff,” Sebastian pleads. “I always feel like I’m crowding you.”  
  
“You’re an idiot,” John says. “You think you’re crowding me?”  
  
Sebastian shrugs helplessly. “You’re the one who thinks I don’t care about him.”  
  
John rolls his shoulders, face lifting with a touch of a grin. “Not my best moment, I’ll admit.”  
  
Sebastian feels a weight off his shoulders and says, “Can we go to bed, now? Can we stop fighting and go to bed? I’m so tired, Johnny. I’m exhausted.”  
  
-  
  
Sebastian dreams of flames as high as the Tower of London, of severed fingers and butterfly wings, of strawberries and purple black darkness. He dreams of the ripping sound his skin made when the bullet cut through it, the shade of those knotted branches, the empty sky above him. He dreams of dying and of how fast he fell—  
  
He wakes up in his bed, sweating and panting and John watching him with sympathetic eyes from the doorway. John is dressed for work, and it’s just light enough outside that his eyes are pale blue. John doesn’t stop adjusting his tie, carefully not meeting Seb’s eyes. “Alright?”  
  
Sebastian scrubs a hand through his hair, sitting up. “Uh, yes, it was a dream.”  
  
“Dream?” John asks with a small lilt.  
  
“Nightmare,” Sebastian corrects and heads for the bathroom.  
  
His eyes look sunken in the mirror, face pale and his hair matted down with sweat. He splashes water on his face and tries to shake himself out of it, ears ringing with the rattle of bullets. John appears behind him in the mirror, mouth turned down. “Do you feel sick?”  
  
“No,” Sebastian says, drying his face in a towel. “Just disoriented.”  
  
He sets the towel down and turns to face John but the room spins and lurches. Above him, the chestnut tree twists and bears down on him to swallow him whole. His knees give out and slap down on tree roots, the world cracking with spider reds and his blood, his death and his birth.  
  
“Sebastian,” he hears and it must be God. “Sebastian,” God calls, “Are you alright? Look at me, Sebastian.”  
  
The doors and walls are cracking apart with sand bleeding down to bury him. “I’m dying,” Sebastian hears himself say and grabs at his guts to keep them in.  
  
“No, Seb,” God says, “You’re not dying, you’re perfectly fine, can you look at me?”  
  
Sebastian looks up and it’s not God, it’s just John. “John the Doctor,” he says, mouth foaming up with blood. “You’ll get hurt here, John the Doctor, you should go.”  
  
“No, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to be hurt. Just look at me, okay, Seb? Look at my eyes and try to breathe.” John the Doctor sets his hand on Sebastian’s stomach, “See, Seb, you’re all closed up, organs where they should be. We’re at home, Sebastian. Home, okay? Now breathe, ready?”  
  
Sebastian’s hands are dry, mouth empty and the world shudders down to ice blues and Sebastian breathes.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian is smoking on the front step when John returns from work. He’s holding a takeaway bag from their favorite Indian place and smiling with quirked lips. Sebastian tips his cigarette up at him in greeting.  
  
“Did Mrs. Hudson yell at you again?”  
  
Sebastian grins up at him. “She called me a delinquent.”  
  
John laughs. “You are a delinquent. If you really don’t like smoking out here, perhaps you should quit all together.”  
  
“Nah,” Sebastian dispels, dragging from the cigarette. “Sounds boring.”  
  
“Alright,” John dismisses. “I’m going inside. Come in if you’re hungry. I’ve got your favorite.”  
  
“Yes, you do,” Sebastian agrees, watching John walk up the stairs.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian almost feels guilty when he wanders off again. It’s nearly three in the morning and he can’t sleep, so he pulls on his boots and leaves the flat. London is quiet tonight; no one is moving for precaution, the police have been patrolling harder in the shipping districts. He almost feels guilty for wandering, for sitting in that empty cathedral, but he checked before he left and Sherlock’s room is still locked.  
  
It’s not yet light out when Agnes calls. She sounds rushed and there are people talking in the background. “Colonel, sir, sorry to wake you, sir.”  
  
Sebastian tips his head back and gazes at the figures painted on the sprawling ceiling. “What is it, Agnes?”  
  
“St. Barts, sir, the hospital is on fire.”  
  
“Call the fire brigade, then, what do I care—” Sebastian murmurs but then realizes the voices in the background are the boys of the spec ops team. “Wait, what are you saying? Was it one of ours?”  
  
“Too early to know, Colonel, but it looks big, sir, definitely arson.”  
  
Sebastian shuts his eyes and counts his breaths, considering. “Alright, fine. Gather the Alpha and Beta teams, go in as police, do your hardest and all to keep as many people alive as possible. We can’t have deaths on top of arson. When it’s all clear, call me.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“No casualties, Agnes,” Sebastian warns.  
  
“Yes, sir,” she repeats and disconnects.  
  
The cathedral is cool and Sebastian slips a hand under his shirt to finger his scar disinterestedly. It seem illogical for someone to torch a hospital but for all Seb knows, it was those street kids that insist they run the city. He’ll have to kill them.  
  
-  
  
Russia was always too loud for Sebastian’s taste. Major cities are just shy of too populated, the people are always on edge, it makes Sebastian uncomfortable. After the strawberries, Jim doesn’t send Sebastian to Russia anymore. There was a high profile assassination, someone who needs to be killed the right way, and sensitively, for that matter. Sebastian is about to roll his eyes and book a flight — because he might hate Russia but this is his job when Jim says, “Pick a kitty to take it.”  
  
“What?” Sebastian says, caught off guard.  
  
“Grab a Boy Wonder from the litter,” he gestures vaguely to the spec ops team. “They’re your toys anyway.”  
  
“You don’t want _me_ to—” Sebastian cuts himself off, sounding like a fourteen-year-old at his first dance.  
  
“Not this one, Seabiscuit,” Jim coos at him condescendingly, “Daddy’s taking you to London. We’re due in a meeting. Now pick a Boy Scout and let’s move on.”  
  
“Caleb,” Sebastian says, because Jim hates Caleb.  
  
Jim rolls his eyes mockingly. “Whatever!”  
  
After Jim dies, Sebastian is in Russia and toasts empty glasses with empty-eyed people, under empty skies. There are only two things that have substance anymore: Sebastian’s loaded gun and Caleb’s skull with a bullet lodged inside.  
  
-  
  
The cathedral is Sebastian’s favorite place this week. Unless it’s Sunday morning, he can almost always catch the place deserted and instead of bashing his head against the floor, he counts. There’s always light in the cathedral, Father Davis is always around and the counting keeps Sebastian steady, like a heartbeat. The day John the Doctor decides to follow him, Sebastian was heading in this direction anyway.  
  
“Is this where you come every night?” John the Doctor asks, sitting in the pew behind him.  
  
Sebastian half turns and smiles innocently. “Did you follow me?”  
  
“Oh please,” John the Doctor rolls his eyes, “You knew I was behind you the entire time.”  
  
Sebastian laughs at him, head tipped back. “Yes, I did.”  
  
“I didn’t know you were, uh, religious, Seb,” John the Doctor says casually.  
  
“I’m not.” Sebastian corrects, “I don’t think so.”  
  
“Oh, alright.” John pauses. “Can we go home then?”  
  
Home is 221B now, and it feels almost like blasphemy but Sebastian is giddy for their return. Home means Mother Hudson’s cooking, John the Doctor’s attention, the dark of their bedroom. Home is a lived in place, rich with memories and substance.  
  
Sebastian looks back at John the Forgiver, John the Immerser, a sprawl of sky above him and liquid blue before him, and says, “I know you set fire to St. Barts.”  
  
John looks taken aback for a moment and his eyes clear. He opens his mouth to speak but closes it and begins again. Back straight, John says very carefully, “I opened the door.”  
  
-  
  
When Sebastian moves out of his flat, he only leaves a single object behind.  
  
The British government saw fit to bury both charming Rich Brook and local terrorist Jim Moriarty — faux or not — at sea. Claiming grave desecration was almost inevitable and having no one to contest the idea, they took his body. Sebastian wasn’t going to claim it, of course, but he briefly considered stealing it.  
  
In the end, he dedicated a single item to Jim and left it on his mantle like an urn. It was a dashboard hula girl, aged and broken, but still stuck to the mantle. In the end, Jim was like everyone else in Sebastian’s life, and the hula girl was a reminder. Jim always knew the dance steps before Sebastian; there was a play going when Jim walked up to the roof of St. Barts and he would have never shot himself if it wasn’t already planned.  
  
In the end, Jim chose to leave Sebastian and so in moving into John the Doctor’s flat, Sebastian leaves behind the dancer.  
  
-  
  
Mother Hudson is bringing them biscuits when John brings it up. He’s sipping tiredly at his tea and falling asleep on his chair. Sebastian is sitting on the floor watching telly and says, “You work too hard, Johnny.”  
  
John the Doctor smiles wanly, “It’s just been a tough week, I think. There was, well, there has been an odd case coming through, like recurrently and it’s just got me in a bind.”  
  
“Odd?” Mother Hudson asks, hands clasped together before her.  
  
“Yesterday,” John says, picking at his food, “There was a woman with abdominal pains and she kept saying they were like cramps or something but she was fine. Clean bill of health, and she’s come in again today but refuses to take a second opinion. I’ve ruled out so many illnesses, I don’t know where to turn anymore.”  
  
“It sounds like you’ve got an admirer,” Mother Hudson teases and Sebastian laughs but it sounds like Agnes won’t survive the week.  
  
-  
  
Agnes, as it turns out, broke up with DI Dimmock weeks ago and when Sebastian has Clara open the CCTV feeds near John’s clinic he sees red. He calls Agnes to the warehouse for a job and she may be small but she fights back when he hits her. Sebastian thinks of all the jobs she’s compromised and catches all her punches. He pushes her back and she stumbles to the ground but is up again in an instant.  
  
Agnes is quick and she lunges again but Sebastian ducks out of the swing and lands a powerful blow to the side of her ribs, knocking the breath out of her. He’s bleeding from his lip and she’s bleeding from a gash on her cheekbones but her hands are steady. She’s so singularly focused, though, that she doesn’t notice her replacement coming up behind her to choke her. She scrambles for leverage but it’s already too late. The spec ops team all watch when Sebastian cuts her open.  
  
Agnes’ replacement takes care of the body, handles the spec ops team and asks Sebastian if he needs a ride home. Sebastian will be rid of him soon, too.  
  
-  
  
The problem is that when he comes home, John is waiting for him with dinner. Sebastian considers lying for a moment but by then John the Doctor is off the sofa, coming towards Sebastian with ice blues. “What happened? Are you hurt?”  
  
There’s blood on his sleeves and his chest and anywhere Agnes tried to grapple before the blood loss silenced her. John is pushing Sebastian against the door with unfocused eyes, “Seb, what is this? You’re bleeding — where are you hurt?”  
  
Sebastian breathes in shuddered rasps and wills his voice not to tremble. “John,” he says and takes John’s hands to keep him still. “I’m not hurt. It’s not my blood, Johnny.”  
  
John looks horrified for a moment and then the disgust in his voice is absolute. “What did you do?”  
  
Sebastian wants to crawl out of his skin for it but he moves past John, to the bathroom. It’s bright inside, harsh light and tile pattern and John the Doctor won’t forgive this. The violence inside Sebastian’s mouth is consuming.  
  
The wall is cool against his head and Sebastian has been consumed so he slams his forehead forward, trying to dispel the violence, the adrenaline that comes in killing. God abandoned him beneath a chestnut tree and Sebastian’s been dying ever since; he’s been breaking his teeth and cutting out his speech pattern but right now, all he can do is slam his head against the wall until the hot trickle of blood falls past his eyes. The resulting sweep of vertigo and nausea feels exquisite.  
  
-  
  
Jim’s mouth was purple black, bruised with shadows. “Wake up, Sebastian, we have to get going. We have to be up now and your little dreams can’t save you, Tiny. No one can save you, not from me — no matter how hard you try, you can’t break away.”  
  
-  
  
John’s eyes are liquid again when Sebastian comes to. He’s hunched over Seb with a hand of something cool against his head. John is watching him with quiet, deadly focus. “John the Doctor,” Sebastian murmurs and the cool ripples down his body, the crown of his head is wet. “You are always so calm, Johnny, always John the Forgiver, pouring ice water down my back, John the Immerser, speaking and confessing perfection, John the Baptist.”  
  
John the Baptist smiles at Sebastian, cool-touched fingertips keeping Seb together. “Rest, Sebastian. I’ll be here when you wake up.”  
  
“Will you?” Sebastian asks, glazed in black, and it’s an honest question.  
  
John the Doctor is silent for a moment. “I know you worked for Moriarty.”  
  
“You do? I’m sorry. Will you forgive me? I repent, John the Baptist, I know the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Forgive me.”  
  
“Rest, now,” John the Doctor says and Sebastian does his best.  
  
-  
  
“Mrs. Hudson, this is Sebastian. Sebastian, Mrs. Hudson.” John said and Sebastian kissed her hand respectfully, “Ma’am.”  
  
“Oh, hello, Sebastian. It’s lovely to meet you. How have you come to know our John?”  
  
Sebastian was at a loss. He looked at John for his cue, eyebrows raised. John’s smile flickered but then brightened. “Sebastian and I are— we’re together.”  
  
“Together,” Sebastian repeated. “In a— a room as a romance—”  
  
“In an in— intimate, oh god, or uh, personal—”  
  
“We’re seeing each other,” Sebastian said, “With our—”  
  
“Oh how wonderful!” Mrs. Hudson interrupted, thankfully ignoring their awkward squawking. “You make a very handsome couple, nothing to be ashamed of. I hope you’re both hungry, I made breakfast,” she trotted off into the kitchen exclaiming about toast.  
  
John grinned sheepishly at Sebastian. “That was,” he scratched the back of his neck, “uncomfortable.”  
  
“Very,” Sebastian said, shell shocked. “I mean, I’m not ashamed of you.”  
  
“No, nor I,” John agreed. “It’s just a bit confusing, I still consider myself straight.”  
  
“So do I. But I mean— I like you.”  
  
“Yeah?” John’s grin turned up a notch, “I like you, too. But,” he cleared his throat, “Boyfriends?”  
  
“We’re not fifteen,” Sebastian dismissed. “Partners?”  
  
John laughs, “We don’t own any cats.”  
  
Sebastian chuckled, leaning into John, “Together, then? Just— I dunno.”  
  
“Just together,” John simplified.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian is a sniper. He worked for Jim as much as he worked with Jim. John can lock Sherlock in a room and hide all the things that bring back his memory but it doesn’t work that way for Sebastian. The Most Dangerous Man in London shot himself in the head and after all they did — building an empire, digging graves for children, damning a city — someone had to inherit the title. Sebastian was given a kingdom and destruction on their level cannot be ignored.  
  
Mandate of heaven, divine right, call it what you like.  
  
-  
  
Sebastian wakes up in a bed the second time but considering he couldn’t gauge his location before, it’s likely he’s been here all along. The shirt with Agnes’ blood is gone and John is beside him, saying, “Wake up for a moment, Seb.”  
  
“What is it?” Sebastian mutters. “What’s wrong?”  
  
“Nothing’s wrong, just look at me for a moment.” Sebastian isn’t fully awake and then John is hovering over him, flashing a light in his eyes.  
  
Sebastian waves him off. “I haven’t got a concussion.”  
  
“I’m the doctor,” John says curtly and smacks his hand away.  
  
Sebastian sighs but allows it, following John’s torch easily. John is staring straight at him but Sebastian can’t feel his gaze. John shuts the light off and it’s dark in their room again, light coming in from the street lamps. “Are you in any pain?” John asks. “I bandaged your head, it looks alright, you shouldn’t need stitches—”  
  
“How did you know about Moriarty?”  
  
“Mycroft Holmes,” John answers minimally.  
  
“Do you want to know what else I’ve done?”  
  
John licks his lips, frowning. “Tell me what you did.”  
  
-  
  
Meeting Jim and working for him felt the same to Sebastian. Blacking out in Afghanistan and braining piglets with baseball bats were almost requisite of each other.  
  
Jim never promised Sebastian anything, Jim never lied to him, never asked for irrational or impossible things, and he always appreciated Sebastian’s work. There were times when Seb thought he had gone mad as well, to have to follow after Jim like that, but then Jim would say something spectacularly brilliant and none of it mattered anymore.  
  
“But,” John objects, “he was insane.”  
  
-  
  
DI Dimmock was born in Kent with a younger brother, an older sister and two perfectly healthy parents. He moved to London when he was eighteen and by the time he was 21, he was a dirty cop. He dealt under the table with half of the illegal gambling dens in the city. After almost getting caught, he relaxed with the bribes. So much so that he managed to himself up to DI.  
  
He’s overlooked most days by DI Lestrade and the others at Scotland Yard but he meets a girl named Agnes at a pub and something in him changes. DS Donovan never bothers with him but Agnes smiles at Dimmock and nothing bothers him. Agnes is in trouble one day and Dimmock helps her — Dimmock finds himself willing to do anything for her. He puts a crate through customs for her and doesn’t ask questions.  
  
Until Agnes is a traitor. Her own brother comes to Dimmock and asks for help — Agnes is compromising more than just business, she’s trying to sell out Dimmock, sell out Sebastian, and sell London to terrorists. It’s DI Dimmock’s duty to help Sebastian. Agnes set fire to St. Barts and she’s betrayed Dimmock, she’s not the person he expected at all.  
  
Sebastian talks and talks and cries when it becomes too much but Dimmock promises to help him, to help the country, to help Agnes no matter what it takes. He holds her down when Sebastian stabs her and with blood on his hands, he meets the real Sebastian Moran.  
  
Dimmock doesn’t know how it got this far but he knows he can’t turn back now — not while he’s digging a grave — and with all the potential for business with Sebastian, Dimmock doesn’t think he wants to.  
  
-  
  
“I killed her,” Sebastian confesses. “The woman who came to your clinic with strange symptoms and no results? Yeah, her. She’s an operative of mine — or was — and her name was Agnes. She came to you for leverage against me. I killed her, replaced her, and eliminated her special operations team. Her replacement is building a new one for himself.”  
  
“Who is her replacement?” John asks, brow furrowed.  
  
“I can’t tell you that.”  
  
“What can you tell me?”  
  
Sebastian chews his tongue, considering. “Your sister’s girlfriend is a pirate.”  
  
-  
  
John is promoted at the clinic — a position he insists is more title than practice — and Sebastian holds him down for an hour or so kissing round edged teeth marks into his collarbone. John’s skin is always cool and Sebastian raises goose flesh at his navel, nipping lightly. Their bed is neutral ground in this way.  
  
The boys need sex, they need physical contact, they both need comfort and rest at some point. Sebastian concusses himself in the bathroom, John locks the other room of the apartment and they fight like dogs over rugby matches in the living room but none of those rooms know them.  
  
John will hiss epiphanies into Sebastian’s ear at night, caught in the heat of his body, and then bare his scars in the morning, murmuring of their grotesque power. Their bedroom knows them.  
  
-  
  
“The Swiss Slip?” Sebastian says, “We did that. Clara, me, a group of hackers and money launderers. It was fantastic.”  
  
“You robbed that bank?” John exclaims, though he sounds impressed. “Why?”  
  
Sebastian shifts to sit up on the bed, “It was something of an audition. We stole a lot of money but we were only hitting one bank account and the point wasn’t to keep it. We had it for thirty-two minutes before the Russians found it.”  
  
“You stole from the Russians?”  
  
“One Russian, a mafia boss that was trying to push into our operations in Omsk. Instead, I decided a merger was in order. It worked, at least; we’ve passed a steady flow of goods between Russia and the continent.”  
  
John hesitates on his next question, pursing his lips slightly. “Goods?”  
  
“Matryoshka dolls,” Sebastian answers and it’s not technically a lie.  
  
-  
  
Golem doesn’t question his presence this time, just clambers into the limo and drinks from a champagne flute. Sebastian waves to the set of gorgeous flight attendants and follows after him. It’s raining outside and Oscar is stretched out over one side, dripping water everywhere.  
  
“That’s leather,” Sebastian comments.  
  
Golem waves a careless hand. “So am I.”  
  
“How was your trip?” Sebastian asks. “Did everything go over well?”  
  
“I figured it out,” Golem says. “Why you keep sending me to Prague,” he continues at Sebastian’s raised brow.  
  
“Why am I sending you?”  
  
“People,” he says, ignoring the question, “used to call Moriarty your father, Sebastian. Did you know that? Daddy’s Little Boy, they said. I never cared for gossip but they were almost correct, weren’t they? Almost.”  
  
-  
  
John’s ice eyes are back for this conversation and he looks almost plaintive. “Stop, Seb, stop telling me about everything. Stop looking at me like that.”  
  
“I am sorry, John,” Sebastian says. “Honestly, I am sorry.”  
  
“What does that mean, Sebastian? Why are you apologizing to me? What good does that do? You should apologize to the people you’ve killed— Jesus, Seb, you’ve killed so many people. How many?”  
  
Sebastian bows his head. “Don’t ask me that.”  
  
“Jesus,” John curses, then purses his lips. He paces for a few minutes but then sits next to Sebastian, silent. His shoulders loosen after a pause and he takes Sebastian’s hand. Their bedroom is dark and Sebastian slides his thumb over John’s pulse point. It seems like an eternity has passed, breathing and beating and begging.  
  
“How did we come to be here?”  
  
-  
  
The next morning, Sebastian wakes up in a quiet flat. It’s raining outside and John is asleep in the bed beside him. Sebastian kisses his shoulder blades and the soldier instinct never goes away because John is awake immediately.  
  
“What time is it?” he asks in a sleep-addled mumble.  
  
“I dunno,” Sebastian says, “I just woke up.”  
  
“Go back to sleep,” John grumbles at him.  
  
“Nah,” Sebastian says. “I’m hungry. Do you want me to make you something?”  
  
John sighs sleepily, “No, I’m going to sleep again,” he says and turns back to face Sebastian for a quick kiss. John’s eyes are liquid blue this morning, blinking sleepily up at Sebastian. John’s lips are warm and their bedroom is dim, rain sloshing outside.  
  
“Get some sleep, then, doctor,” Sebastian says.  
  
John’s smile is just as sleepy and he turns over again, shoulders lax and breath evening out. Sebastian grabs his boots from the foot of the bed and pulls them on but before he can leave the room, John calls out, “Water the plants, Seb.”  
  
Sebastian snorts. “Yes, dear.”  
  
Downstairs, the flat is chillier and Sebastian almost goes back up to search for a shirt or some trousers to put on but decides against it. The rustling will only wake John further and the doctor needs to sleep more often. Instead, he grabs a glass from the kitchen and fills it with water for the row of plants John and Mother Hudson insist on keeping. As it is, the plants grow very slowly in their stunted environment.  
  
“At least you grow,” Sebastian says, mimicking John’s argument.  
  
His phone chimes on his way back to the kitchen. He snatches it up from the table and dials his voicemail as he pours.  
  
“You have one new message. To listen to your message, press one.” Sebastian fumbles with the phone, trying to keep from drowning the plant and considering toast for breakfast, or maybe eggs. “First new message from blocked number, received at 3.27,” the machine recites as Sebastian moves to the final pot on the mantle. The receiver is silent for a moment but through a crackle of static, Sebastian hears the message.  
  
“Honey,” He says and it’s Him, “I’m home.”


End file.
